The flu epidemic spread following the path of its human carriers, along trade routes and shipping lines

I knew there was a terrible flu epidemic near the end of what we now refer to as World War I. The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 struck young people particularly hard, and killed between 20 and 40 million people worldwide, including an estimated 675,000 Americans, far more than the war. But what CAUSED what was perhaps the second deadliest disease outbreak in human history?

“In researching his book The Great Influenza, John M. Barry discovered that in January 1918, a doctor in Haskell County, Kansas reported unusual flu activity to the U.S. Public Health Service. By March, that had spread to nearby Fort Riley. On the morning of March 11, an Army private reported symptoms of fever, sore throat, and headache. By lunch that day, more than 100 soldiers on the base had fallen sick.

“At the time, very little was known about viruses and their transmission. In fact, the very first virus – Tobacco mosaic virus – had only been discovered 26 years earlier in 1892.”

Interesting that the recommendations against contracting the flu were slightly different from a century later. “Wash inside nose with soap and water each night and morning; force yourself to sneeze night and morning, then breathe deeply; do not wear a muffler; take sharp walks regularly and walk home from work; eat plenty of porridge.”

Kessler notes: “Diet and exercise are, of course, essential components of our health, but a brisk walk isn’t going to do much when it comes to preventing a virus from hijacking a host’s cells and replicating itself. From Fort Riley, soldiers carried the disease to other American military bases and, eventually, the battlefront in Europe.”

That first wave wasn’t particularly virulent. But, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control: “In September 1918, the second wave of pandemic flu emerged at Camp Devens, a U.S. Army training camp just outside of Boston, and at a naval facility in Boston. This wave was brutal and peaked in the U.S. from September through November. More than 100,000 Americans died during October alone.”

Stanford University notes the awful effects of the flu epidemic worldwide: “It spread following the path of its human carriers, along trade routes and shipping lines. Outbreaks swept through North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Brazil and the South Pacific In India the mortality rate was extremely high at around 50 deaths from influenza per 1,000 people. The Great War, with its mass movements of men in armies and aboard ships, probably aided in its rapid diffusion and attack.”

As the CDC notes, “Scientists now know this pandemic was caused by an H1N1 virus, which continued to circulate as a seasonal virus worldwide for the next 38 years.”

Like all of Peter Jackson’ s work, it is first and foremost a special effects movie.

I can’t remember the last time I took off work to see a movie. But my parents-in-law, four of my wife’s cousins, and three of their significant others all traveled at least an hour to a Regal Theater in Albany to see They Shall Not Grow Old with my wife and me.

It was a curious release process, two showings, one in the evening of December 17, and the other the afternoon of December 27, in about 1,140 theaters. It was put out by Fathom Events, which specializes in one-day cinematic events such as opera performances.

Back in 2014, the centennial of the beginning of World War I, director Peter Jackson was commissioned to take 100 hours of footage and 600 hours of audio clips and make a movie out of it. As the director admitted in a clip before the actual film, he didn’t know WHAT to do initially.

Eventually, he came up with a narrative that involved the recruitment process in Britain, with many of the recruits underage; they should have been 18, and 19 to go overseas. And it’s when the story switches to France that the film changes from black and white to color.

They Shall Not Grow Old does not attempt to describe a specific battle, but rather the stress from training, boredom from waiting, to being in the trenches and experiencing German bombardments. It wasn’t until the 30-minute “making of” that I truly appreciated the astonishing work it took to make the film look as it did, from slowing down or speeding up the film to making film that appeared too dark or too light pleasing to the eye.

I was so taken by the film that I immediately had to find the two critics out of 68 who gave it a negative review. One said, “Like all of [Jackson’ s] work, it is first and foremost a special effects movie.” And it is, and an incredible one at that, but it’s an odd complaint.

The other groused that “the film is yet another erasure of soldiers of color who are nowhere to be found in what is otherwise a postmodern take on documentary filmmaking.” I don’t know was captured in those recordings so I can’t speak to this.

The truth is, and Jackson said so, that he could have made any number of films, including the role of women in the war effort, a generation before Rosie the Riveter. Or the war at sea. He was trying to create a coherent narrative. One does see, briefly, troops from other parts of the British Empire.

With the success of those two days, They Shall Not Grow Old will have another showing on January 21. An earlier report suggests it will receive a limited theatrical releases in NYC, L.A. and Washington DC starting on January 11, with plans to then expand into 25 more markets on February 1.